Playing to the Gallery

Wartime Paris is full of half-empty theatres. Broad-faced Gustave Quinson, director of one of them, got long-faced looking at so many vacant seats. So he hacked out cardboard dummies of soldiers, sailors, French and English celebrities, propped them up in boxes and along the first row gallery.

Alone in one box sits Allied Chief Maurice Gamelin; alone in another, Chief of Staff Alphonse Georges. High up, opposite the stage but ignoring it in favor of a papier-mache lady, sits Neville Chamberlain. Others on display : Josephine Baker, Edouard Bourdet, Mistinguett, Cecile Sorel, Tristan Bernard, Lord Gort, leering poilus, grinning jacktars, bearded Moroccans.

Between the acts, audiences get a big kick out of identifying the cardboard claque. But Director Quinson, still long-faced, still sees too many empty seats, is buying more cardboard.

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